


Five Times Loki Hinted That It Was Valentine's Day and One Time Natasha Got It

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Magic-Users, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Relationship, Svartálfaheimr | Svartalfheim, Svartálfar | Svartalfar | Black Elves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 11:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6050242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki was condemned to serve Midgard to pay recompense for every life he had taken in his abortive attempt to rule earth. Natasha became his handler, and he was surprised by how much he grew to like her. And then he discovered Valentine's Day...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Loki Hinted That It Was Valentine's Day and One Time Natasha Got It

One

Loki had grudgingly agreed to serve SHIELD's interests on Earth as penance for the lives lost in the Battle of New York. It was like Natasha's red ledger, only literal: Fury had a list of every New Yorker that had been killed, injured or otherwise maimed in the battle and course of the clean up. Frigga had done the geasa herself, and Loki hadn't been able to keep from being betrayed by that. "Would you rather rot in the palace prisons until everyone forgot about you?" she'd asked, pushing aside the hurt in her own heart. Loki could still see it, and wanted to tell himself he didn't care.

But he did, more fool him.

Between missions, he had little to do. After one too many gauche comments, Natasha Romanoff, his handler, had sarcastically told him to learn from TV. "Poor substitute for actual humanity," she'd said dryly, "but maybe you can learn from their mistakes."

This was how he had learned about St. Valentine, and the holiday named after him. And that anger could cover up desire, and that all sorts of shenanigans could be seen as courtship rituals.

Humans were utterly _insane._ His first assessment was right. They were made to be ruled, and their realm was in utter chaos. Then again, chaos was his element, and that chaos on Earth meant that other countries couldn't demand recompense from him until his debt to New York was satisfied. Apparently, New Mexico, Germany and Sweden also had claim on his services once the lives of New Yorkers had been paid for.

Sitting in his quarters with only TV and movies for company, Loki couldn't help but long for Natasha's droll company. She had snuck up on him in the helicarrier, bested him at his own game, played his assumptions about her false. To have someone as clever as he was to verbally spar with was a rarity, and she was comely as well. He would be lying if he said he didn't imagine her in various compromising positions, if he didn't look forward to visits or potential interactions with her, no matter what form they took.

He was almost grinning with glee when Natasha arrived on February 12 to tell him about a series of odd runic markings that other SHIELD sources couldn't recognize. "Time to be useful," she said, unlocking the door.

"Could it be that the patron saint of coming days calls to you?" he asked, lips curling a little at the edges. Most of the movies kept mentioning Pride and Prejudice as a perennial favorite of the ladies, which had very formal language in it and various adaptations into film form. His favorite one was the miniseries produced in 1995.

"Shut up and get moving," Natasha replied with an eye roll.

Apparently, that book was not one of her favorites.

Two

The runes were a sad, pathetic attempt by a mortal using ancient Nordic words to create a spell to increase his knowledge and power in mortal finances. How boring. Loki even told Natasha so, and she actually laughed.

He rather liked the sound of that laugh, and the way her features softened.

"You're beautiful when you smile," he blurted, then was promptly appalled at himself for saying such a thing aloud.

Even worse, Natasha didn't seem impressed.

"I'm also beautiful when I don't smile," she replied, shrugging, the smile slipping off her face.

Loki pulled back on the urge to snap at her or say something ugly. "Something about this time of year brings out the smiles, yes?"

"It's cold, dreary and snowing more than it really has any right to," Natasha replied, shaking her head. "I don't mind the cold, but it's harder to hide your steps."

"Does everything come back to defense and hiding?"

"Why wouldn't it?" she countered.

"Not everything has to be a challenge," Loki murmured. "This weekend—"

She shot him a look that had him snapping his mouth shut. "We need to find the rest of this man's team. He wasn't working alone."

"Can't SHIELD work on it?" Loki asked, a whine creeping into his voice. "It's _boring._ It's worse than child's play."

Natasha's eyes flashed, and Loki had to swallow the urge to reach out and grasp her arm. "Even children can be dangerous. They're capable of a lot more than adults give them credit for."

He suddenly remembered when she had first received her training, and merely nodded quietly in agreement. She wasn't wrong, after all.

Three

Loki traced the human responsible for the runes to Scandinavia. He was hiding in the forest, carving into the trees, coating the runes he carved with his own blood. "I suppose we should be thankful it isn't someone else's," Loki sighed afterward.

Capturing him was oddly anticlimactic, and he tried to tell himself it was because the capture did nothing to offset the death toll he had left in his wake. He was still beholden to SHIELD and New York, still forced to work off his sins.

"You sound disappointed," Natasha observed.

Rather than return with a biting comment, Loki shrugged. "I hoped for some kind of challenge. As you said, even children are dangerous. And I chafe at being locked away like a prized possession, an artifact in storage until need arises."

He hadn't meant for his bitterness to show so clearly, but Natasha caught it. "You seemed to want the isolation at first. People seemed to remind you why you were here."

Looking at her with an intense gaze, Loki attempted to smile. "Some don't trouble me at all, Agent Romanoff. Natasha."

The sound of her name on his tongue was wonderful, and he enjoyed saying it more than he thought he would. Especially when she didn't correct him.

"Perhaps we could spend more time together," he suggested when she remained silent.

"We have an incoming transmission," Natasha subvocalized, holding up a finger. "New mission," she added when he stared at her.

"It appears that you aren't quite finished with me yet," Loki told Natasha.

Unfortunately, this time he knew she wasn't listening.

Four

Loki had to fight the feeling that he was being cowed and brought to heel. Yes, geasa had been applied to his magic. But they hadn't been applied to his _spirit,_ and he was currently behaving like a lost child around Natasha. It was utterly appalling, once he thought about his own behavior logically.

This would not continue. This _could not_ continue.

So what could he do about it? Natasha was flying the quinjet they had taken to Scandinavia along with a number of SHIELD agents. At the moment, it was just the two of them. There had been an odd power surge in Estonia that the local government couldn't explain, and some of those in the area purporting to have magic had been struck unconscious at the same time. It was a bit of a political tangle, but finally the Minister of Defense had contacted SHIELD and requested their expertise in the matter.

He shut his eyes and tuned out the few SHIELD agents that were along for this ride; the others remained behind to deal with the mortal Loki had tracked. It seemed to be an odd increase in magical situations that mortals were getting themselves into. This had been such a barren world, magically speaking, one that his moth—Frigga, he corrected himself fiercely—had once thought would never gain the gift.

There.

Eyes shooting open, he tried to stand, forgetting about the straps that held him in place. "I know what's causing it," he called out to Natasha. "There will be turbulence ahead, and you might—"

The power went out, and it was all Natasha could do to keep the quinjet aloft. Loki hit the release button on his straps and stumbled to the center of the quinjet. Wetting his fingertips with his saliva, he started tracing runes on the floor. They lit up as he murmured the last part of the spell lessening the weight of the craft, making it easier for Natasha to maneuver into the closest flat space she could find.

"What was that?" someone demanded shakily.

"Yggdrasil has branches that connect the Nine Realms. Ever since the Convergence, the realms should have started sliding back apart. But I feel the essence of another realm here. Whether someone tried to conjure it, or if it's the damn fools that have been abusing power they don't understand, I don't know."

"Then let's go track down whoever might know around here," Natasha said. Her gaze slid past Loki to the other agents, and they all looked grimly prepared for the worst.

All right, perhaps not _all_ of SHIELD was comprised of incompetent fools.

"Afterward," Loki said in a soft tone only for Natasha's ears as he caught her arm, "I would wish to dine alone with you. This is an important weekend."

"Is it?" she asked. "Let's see how this mission goes first."

Well, at least she didn't say no.

Five

Estonian midsummer festivals often included bonfires and burning sacred oak and linden to appease nature spirits. The country's early mythologies often involved trees with the gods or the birth of the world, with legends about giants, traveling forests and sacred stones. For there to be a sudden power surge in the country, with the essence of another realm bleeding through, was far too much of a coincidence.

Loki led the way into the Estonian countryside, following the thread of magic that didn't feel like it belonged to Midgard. His jaw was set, eyes narrowed in concentration. This was better, more of a hunt, more of something he wanted to play with. This was a mission worthy of him and his skill, something that was an actual challenge.

Casting a thread of _seidr_ ahead of him, he was nearly blinded by a flash of light when he crossed over the threshold from one farm to another. Being stubborn, he continued on with his eyes shut, going by the sense of magic rather visual cues.

As a result, he didn't have any warning when he was thrown backward, flying through the air nearly five hundred feet before he crashed into the ground. He was vaguely aware of bullets being fired, of shouts in different languages. 

The world spun around him, vision blurring. He could almost _see_ where Yggdrasil's branches from Svartalfheim were bleeding through, a bright forest abutting the flat farmland, a dark sky beyond the trees. It was a blasted land of ash and stone beyond the forest, one that looked familiar. "So something survived the Aether after all," he murmured, staggering up to his feet. Loki should have stayed down, but he wasn't about to let a simple shield and blast spell knock him out. That was a trick played on lesser creatures, those unschooled in magic, or just learning the craft.

Ignoring the screams, he followed the essence of magic. He didn't recognize it, but soon enough, he found himself crossing over into the forest. He saw the towering spires and treetop homes, and then everything snapped into place as he saw the dark elves walking throughout the homes in the forest. Some were painting sigils on themselves, marks and runes that looked to be protection spells and illusion spells.

He couldn't see the Queen herself, and wondered if she had already crossed over into Midgard to fool the mortals. He knew he had to protect Natasha and the other agents. Not just because of the damned ledger they foisted upon him, but because they had no idea of the magnitude of what they were dealing with.

And if there was one thing Loki could never abide, it was sloppy work and allies dying if he didn't plan for it to happen.

Staggering back across the threshold to Midgard, Loki saw a collection of Estonians fighting the SHIELD agents. There was a woman hovering above the ground behind them, ethereal and pale, a look of serenity on her features, looking like artists' rendition of a moon goddess. Loki could see the threads of magic all around her, tethering her to the foolish Estonians that no doubt thought she was a living embodiment of their myths.

Adjusting the _spá_ wasn't his forte, especially with a concussion, but he wasn't about to let that stop him. He held himself as the resident expert on all things magical, and he didn't want the others to think he was less than what he purported to be. It was a damning situation, but he got himself into those kinds of messes all the time.

So rather than unweaving and unraveling the threads of magic, he simply cut them.

The woman fell to the ground, collapsing and looking ghastly, as if dying. The recoil from the magic hit him hard, and he collapsed as well. He was in a boneless, ungainly heap, vertigo assaulting his senses even with his eyes shut.

Sometimes, he really _loathed_ magic.

Natasha eventually came to his side and gingerly turned him over. She pressed her fingers to his neck, feeling his pulse. "You're alive," she murmured gently. "Likely injured. We'll need to get you to a stable facility."

Loki dared to crack his eyes open to see her. The light behind her turned her hair into a halo of living fire, and the sight of it took his breath away. Hadn't Frigga once told him that he could only be consumed and tempered by fire?

"You're the one she meant," Loki whispered, not realizing he was speaking in Allspeak. "You challenge me, make me think, make me _yearn._ I would spend time with you outside of a mission, if I could, in whatever manner of courtship these mortals use."

He couldn't understand why she frowned at him. Would she spurn his earnest advances? Would she think him unworthy? Throw him over for Thor?

"Whatever you just said, that wasn't in English or any of the other languages I know," she said slowly. "Definitely a concussion. We'll talk again once you've been treated."

Sighing in frustration, all Loki did was nod. The vertigo worsened, making him regret the move and wince. It at least made Natasha cradle his head gently as she probed for wounds, and her touch was far more soothing than he wanted to admit.

And One More

Pretending to be the moon spirit Kuu, Queen Alflyse of the Eastern Spires sought to bring the last surviving piece of Svartalfheim to Earth. Estonia had seemed like a good enough place to start, given its mythological history and difference in culture from the other Balkan states. She hadn't considered the state of Midgard at all; most other realms considered it a backwater realm full of ignorant creatures barely able to string sentences together. It wasn't that she was normally a cruel ruler, or so dismissive of others, but the remaining forests were dying and she honestly thought she could aid Estonia.

Frigga ultimately came down from Asgard and untangled the piece of Svartalfheim so that it was no longer tethered to Earth or triggering massive waves of magical recoil. She was impressed with Loki's work for SHIELD, and traced out the damage that he had inadvertently done to himself in Estonia. "It's the nature of magic," she had said in her kindly tones. "You cannot take from its power without giving up something in return. And I think you are starting to realize that truth in a way a great many others never did."

"Meaning?" he'd said, tone harsher than he had intended it to be.

Her smile was tinged with sadness. "You're growing up, my son."

"I am not your son."

"Are you not? And do I not come when you need me?"

"I didn't ask it of you."

"Of course not. But here I am, and I would always come to your aid if I can." Her hand hovered over his as he laid on the hospital bed SHIELD had requested he stay in, and after a moment's hesitation, she let it fall. "I would take your pain if I could. But I don't understand its source, and I don't think I have craft enough to locate it."

"Admitting something you can't do?" Loki asked, an almost cruel edge to his voice. He instantly felt shame when he saw Frigga's eyes grow moist.

"I am a queen, and a mother, and one with knowledge of the craft. But I am not a Norn, and I know where my limits are. I wonder if you ever learned yours."

"I think I am now," Loki admitted.

Quickly, Frigga leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead before standing. "Then perhaps there is hope for us all."

He didn't ask what her meaning was before she left, wanting to appear aloof and unmoved by her words. He regretted that, too.

Loki was still brooding when Natasha checked in on him later that evening, unperturbed by the sullen and silent expression on his face. "Queen Frigga asked me to check in on you."

"Did she?" he asked, a surly tone to his voice. He didn't look up at Natasha; gaze turned inward, he could still see the disappointment etched on Frigga's face as she left.

"She's worried about you. Something about the magic of the realms getting twisted up."

"That doesn't sound like her," Loki murmured, finally looking at Natasha. He was startled to see that she was in more casual clothes and not her nanomesh armor suit. Blue jeans, a red shirt and a black leather jacket over heeled boots, with kohl lined eyes and gently curling hair. "Oh. You have plans this weekend, then. I'm too late."

Natasha lofted an eyebrow at him, crossed her arms over her chest and casually leaned against the door frame. "Too late for what?"

"I'm given to understand this is a special weekend. That tomorrow holds sentimental value."

"Valentine's Day?" she asked after a moment. When he nodded, a sinking feeling in his gut, she only shrugged. "It's just another day. Commercialism inflated an otherwise ordinary day. I would rather celebrate personally meaningful days."

Loki swung his legs over the side of his hospital bed. "That is a much more appealing line of thought, yes," he said, smiling a little. "As soon as the healers give clearance, would you like to dine with me? It may be a horridly commercial day, but we can still celebrate the fact that our realm is safe from incursion."

"That would be a meaningful day," she agreed, arms dropping to her sides. She tilted her head and contemplated him. "Especially since it means you consider this realm your home, too."

He thought over his words carefully, then slowly nodded. "I suppose for a time, it is."

"Then yes, I'll have dinner with you. I'll pick the place and pick you up."

"You don't think I would choose something appropriate?"

Natasha smirked. "If dinner goes well tomorrow, you pick the next place. How's that for incentive to behave?"

Loki laughed out loud, giving her a manic grin. "Of course I'll behave. Like what depends on the situation at hand."

Her smirk set his blood on fire. "It'll be an interesting dinner, then."

Oh yes, it was bound to be. And he couldn't wait for it.

The End


End file.
